Personal injury reforms and the impact it will have on you

For the last eight years the insurance industry has been complaining about the issue of whiplash claims claiming that there is a compensation culture and too many fraudulent claims.

Fraud is certainly a serious issue and one which we absolutely oppose. However, recent reform proposals to tackle the fraud is like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

In particular, road accident victims will suffer as a result of the Ministry of Justice’s unnecessary crack down while the insurance industry laughs all the way to the bank.

The proposals are an attempt to lower insurance premiums by £40 but we ask whether the insurance industry will genuinely pass on those savings. Take a look at the recent past….

The Association of British Insurers show figures which suggest that personal motor claims have fallen every year since 2010. Some £5.8 billion was paying out in 2015 compared to 2010 where the figure was £8.3 billion. This is a massive 30% drop and premiums have still continuously risen from 2013 onwards.

We live in a world where no one makes a fuss when people claim for their flight delays or when people have been miss-sold a mobile phone contract or broadband deal. Why should compensation be denied to those who have actually suffered, gone through excruciating pain and even lost their confidence due to an accident they may have had? This is what the Government has been proposing with very little evidence supporting their decision to see it through. (Claimsmag.co.uk)

Car accidents are never a good experience for those who are innocent. Whether you are motorists, or cyclists or pedestrians, you should be compensated for the unnecessary injury and suffering that has been inflicted on you at the fault of someone else’s negligence.

Pro-claimant group A2J have stated that if the Government goes through the with these plans “clients will be frightened off bringing claims forward and case volumes handled by law firms will plummet resulting in mass redundancies of up to 60,000 people”.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she wants Britain work for everyone, not just big companies and the privileged few. If that is so, she and her ministerial colleagues need to spend rather less time listening to insurance companies and rather more time looking after the needs of accident victims.

Those victims should not be the ones to suffer through the activities of a small number of false claimants or as a result of the cynicism of an industry. The hilarious aspect of it is that the insurance industry already has a mechanism to challenge allegedly fraudulent claims; however they haven’t used it quite simply because they say it’s too expensive for them to do so and clearly too much effort to do so. Instead they pay the money out, whilst continuously complaining to ministers about doing so and distressing those who have been through a more severe injury and are dragged through hell and back before they receive any decent medical attention.

These reforms will impact ordinary working people by denying the right to compensation and legal advice. If these reforms go through, if you are unlucky enough to be involved in an accident, you will have to make the claim yourself with no legal representation while the insurance company will have experienced people defending your claim to ensure that they pay you as little as possible – after all, they are a business.

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